The one where you make a prediction
June 12, 2008 by Mike CasazzaThere seems to be an annual debate about the appropriate time to start talking about college football. June? Summer? Fourth of July? Summer practice?
Is it ever too soon?
I’m frankly more fascinated about that conversation than the actual ones about football.
My parameters, you ask? Any time on or after June 21 — start of summer — unless in the case of a significant injury — ie, Patrick White gets hurt striking a Heisman pose at a Memorial Day BBQ. Brief exceptions will be allowed when a grill, a picnic, a pinata, a beach or a game of Wiffle Ball is involved.
I will not argue this.
Well, that was before I received an e-mail last week from the Big East’s Director of Communications, Chuck Sullivan:
The process is very simple and shouldn’t take more than a few minutes of your time. If you could just project the order of finish of the eight BIG EAST schools (Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, USF, Syracuse, West Virginia) and send it to me in an e-mail, I would appreciate it.
The results of the poll will be distributed at our annual media day event in Newport, R.I., July 29. If you need more information on that event, please feel free to let me know.
Oh, I don’t need any more information about that media day. It’s basically the biggest elbow-rubbing shindig on the Big East’s social calendar. There are two elements to it. There’s the news you get with the preseason poll and the player awards, both of which will likely be dominated by WVU this season. Then there’s the other stuff for which there is no value. If you can’t track down a Matt Grothe in the regular season, that’s your shot to corner him for a few minutes of conversation. If you want to pick Tom Jurich’s brain, you may do so at a clam bake. If you need to snicker at Bill Stewart’s golf game, there’s an outing for that.
Basically, it’s an opportunity to see and to be seen — and believe it or not, people are watching.
Anyhow, since the Big East office is soliciting preseason predictions, I guess it’s meaningless to say it’s too early to talk football. I did a little research before submitting my poll and it seems to me that Nos. 1 and 8 are fairly obvious, but that Nos. 2-7 are really debatable. You could arrange and rearrange those six teams a number of different ways and it wouldn’t look bad. Not for you or for the conference.
So have at it. Let’s see your predicted order of finish and add a few comments where you see fit. Send it to your friends and co-workers. Let’s get a bunch of voters and make this our poll.